Author: darkhavensTitle: What If... Batman Plays The Game, But Lets Wally Set The PacePrevious Chapters: A sequel to 'That Which Has Been Seen Cannot Be Unseen.'Fandom: Pairing: Teen Titans/Justice League: Bruce/WallyRating: NC-17 overallWords: 2060Concrit: Please. If you spot a typo or a grammar glitch, feel free to tell me in comments. Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be. No harm, no foul, no money made.Warnings/Squicks: **Wally is 17. Batman is a manipulative bastard who's obsessed by Wally. Power games. Intense flirting. Non-graphic reference to violent fantasies.**Summary: What if Batman plays the game, but lets Wally set the pace and choose if and when they take the next step?Beta:outsideth3boxAuthor's Note #1: Written for my dcu_freeforallBatFlash table, Writer's Choice prompt #1: Control.Author's Note #2:'That Which Has Been Seen…' did not grow the legs that are necessary for a sequel, it grew tentacles. Honestly, this fic has turned into an octopus, with each leg a different 'What If...' scenario. In the end, I stopped trying to chop off the extras and just went with it. This is the first. There will be more.

What If... Batman Plays The Game, But Lets Wally Set The Pace

Wally West flirts, incessantly and indiscriminately, with boys and girls, heroes and villains, total strangers and close friends, but Batman notes that he only ever gets clumsy and pink-cheeked when trying to flirt with him.

It's incredibly arousing, and immensely gratifying, to be granted so much unasked-for power over someone so fresh and pure, so untainted by life, though Batman knows Wally has dealt with more than his fair share of evil in the years since he donned the Kid Flash mask.

That he's managed to keep such a firm, unyielding hold of his joy and faith in the basic goodness of humanity makes him almost impossible to resist.

Batman stops trying.

#

It's amusing to see how long it takes Wally to finally notice that his awkward attempts at flirting are being reciprocated.

When Wally stands the tiniest bit too close, Batman starts to lean in, a little more each time, until nothing but the lack of a deep breath is keeping them apart.

The first time Batman moves in close enough that actual contact is made, Wally's breathless monologue on the villains of Keystone City stutters to a stop for several long seconds, and Batman straightens up, strangely content. For now.

Whenever Wally brushes past him, brimming with badly faked 'Gosh, I didn't mean to do that' innocence, Batman ghosts a fleeting touch across his arm or his hip or the small of his back, and occasionally his ass, though that last touch is guaranteed to disappear the flustered boy in the blink of an eye, and where's the fun in that?

#

The first time Batman lays his hand square on Wally's shoulder – ostensibly a simple 'well done' pat for saving Robin's life… again – Wally freezes up. Every muscle in his body is suddenly locked tight; his eyes are impossibly wide open and the tip of his tongue is just barely visible, slick and pink, pushing up against the inner curve of strong white teeth. And then he starts to vibrate, oscillating microscopically in Batman's grip.

Batman holds Wally's clear green gaze for a small eternity, then notches his thumb into the hollow of Wally's clavicle and uses one gauntleted finger to trace the tendon standing proud along the side of his neck.

Wally is now trembling so fast that the air around him is practically humming, and Batman hopes he's not going to cause a cardiac event by bending down to breathe the words "Thank you," directly into his ear.

Pump well and truly primed, Batman lets his hand slide slowly off Wally's shoulder, coasting it down along the outer edge of bicep and forearm, fingers curling under to brush the palm of his hand for one brief moment before pulling away to leave the boy standing alone and blank-faced in the middle of the room.

#

He's done his part. He's let Wally know that his interest is welcome, without putting any real pressure on him to follow through. All that's left to do is wait and see if he was the nerve to take the next step, to take what he wants.

#

Despite the constant urge to do otherwise, Batman is careful only to visit Titans Tower for viable reasons that are in no way related to his strictly leashed libido. He spends the intervening days and weeks indulging in his fantasies; imagining the mingled shock and lust he'd read on Wally's face if he ever got the chance to share the images he lives with, day and night.

It's almost a month before he finally has cause to talk to Robin and his team again. Kid Flash is noticeably absent. And the next time. And the next. It's almost enough to force Batman to re-evaluate his conclusions, his approach, his determination to let Wally choose his own path. Almost. But he knows better than to start second-guessing himself at this point.

The next time he's at the Tower, Wally's there too, a smudge of red and yellow flickering in the corner of his eye, always close but never close enough to touch.

After the business at hand has been concluded, he asks to borrow Robin's office for an hour, uninterrupted. Robin's smirking acquiescence is… troubling.

There's an almost imperceptible buzz of sound as Wally drums a fast tattoo on the doorframe, and then he's in and the door is clicking shut behind him.

"Hi."

Batman carefully places the pen and paper he'd been toying with to one side and settles back into Robin's Batcave-esque choice of office furniture.

"Wally."

Wally twitches slightly at the sound of his name – his real name.

"I was beginning to think you were avoiding me."

Another twitch, this one morphing into a full-body shrug that's as good as a confession, despite the explanation he actually gives.

"I had… stuff to do. For the Flash. He…" Wally takes a deep, shuddering breath and starts to babble. "He says his rogues are all suffering from sunshine fever and trying to drive him insane, so he called me in to take some of the strain and I got caught up in this stupid kidnap plot and I had to pretend to be unconscious so they didn't-"

Wally bites his lip and then soothes the tiny pain with the tip of his tongue. Batman curls his fingers into fists out of sight behind the desk.

"Um… Yeah? Kinda. But not really, I suppose, because it was all a trap and I was never in any danger so-"

"Good. Would you like to sit down?"

The question seems to remind Wally that he's still hanging onto the door knob. There's a flash of toothsome smile and then he's moving further into the room, pausing for a moment beside the chair opposite Batman, but he doesn't throw himself down in his usual loose-limbed sprawl. Instead, he takes another couple of steps forward and comes up alongside the desk, nudging pens and pencils and a crooked stack of beige folders out of the way so he can perch one spandex-clad hip a few short inches from Batman's right elbow.

Batman's estimation of Wally's courage is nudged a couple of notches higher on his mental scale. There's a slight sheen of terror in Wally's eyes, but he's not letting it prevent him from reaching out for what he wants.

Him.

He'd thought the boy was beautiful when he'd seen him spread out almost naked across his towel on the roof, but that was nothing compared to the way he looks right now: flush-tinted, his system thrumming with nerves, his green eyes bright with hope and hunger.

"I… You've probably noticed that I've been flirting with you, and I think… I mean, I'm pretty sure that you…" He pauses, drags a hand through the bright, wild riot of his hair, and then continues. "Last time, with the hands and the touching and the… the whole whispering in my ear thing, I kinda got the impression that you might be interested in me, but you never… And then I-"

Batman reaches out and places his hand over Wally's, stilling his frantically drumming fingers as the tautly muscled thigh beneath their layered hands shivers with tension.

"I'm a lot older than you, Wally, and while you certainly flirt a lot, I don’t think you're anywhere near as experienced as you pretend to be, as you'd like to be."

Wally swallows hard and nods, but once again proves his courage by squirming sideways across the corner of the desk until his right calf is pressed against Batman's thigh, his hip against Batman's elbow. He licks his lips and Batman mirrors the motion. Wally's swiftly indrawn breath hisses loudly between his teeth.

"So…?"

"You have to make the first move, Wally. You're the one in control here." It's a polite lie, and one that Wally will eventually figure out, but Batman knows it also contains an element of truth and that's enough for now.

"Oh."

There's a pause then, as Wally blinks, eyelashes fluttering so fast they're barely more than copper smudges of light above his cheekbones. And then he's leaning forward, one hand coming up to rest on Batman's shoulder for balance as he angles his head and torso down to press a damp, nervous, awkward kiss to Batman's lips.

He pulls back with a frustrated sigh.

"That's not gonna work. Can you-" His hands sketch something incomprehensible in the air between them. "-stand up? Please? I can't-"

Robin's faux Batchair skitters backwards as Batman pushes to his feet. Wally hums and nods, satisfied with the change of position.

"Much better."

Time seems to slow down as Wally slips off the edge of the desk and steps closer, one foot and leg fitting neatly in between Batman's own. His hands reach up to measure the breadth of Batman's shoulders; slide across and over and up the curves of the neck of the cowl until they meet behind Batman's head and tug him forward, cautiously.

He studies Batman's face like he can see straight through the opaque lenses over his eyes, and then he smiles ruefully, stretches up onto his toes and leans in and…

It's unpractised and still decidedly awkward, but it doesn't stop them or even slow them down. When Batman's hands land on Wally's hips and pull him in tighter, Wally gasps, and then whines as Batman's tongue slides over lips and teeth to steal a brief taste. Wally chases it with his own as it retreats. His hips buck and his pulse spikes when Batman first gently nips and then sucks it in, deep and wet. Intense. Erotic.

The spreading damp spot on his thigh tells Batman that Wally nearly came in his pants right then and he knows it would be oh, so easy to push him over the edge, but…

The almost inaudible hum surrounding Wally, caused by his subsonic vibrations agitating the molecules of air around him, begins to skip and stutter, is suddenly off key, atonal, warbling. And while it's gratifying to know that he's the reason Wally's losing control, he doesn't want the boy to associate his touch with that, doesn't want him scared. Not like this. (Not yet.)

Instead, he eases their lips and hips apart, petting and soothing Wally with wordless sounds and gentle, neutral touches. He nudges him back, step by careful step, until the edge of the chair catches him just behind his knees and he drops like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

There's a moment there when Wally's jittering inside his skin, visibly out of synch in a way that Batman's never seen him be before, and then he's gasping, drawing in huge lungfuls of air like he's been holding his breath for… Oh.

One corner of Batman's mouth rucks up in the faintest of smiles as Wally laughs and laughs, open and real, and entirely at himself. He looks up, finally, and whatever he reads in the curve of Batman's lips is obviously reassurance enough.

"Wow! That was everything I ever… More, even! Can we… Can we do that again, sometime soon? Somewhere private. Horizontal, maybe? Eventually," he amends, every visible square inch of skin damply, deeply flushed.

Batman takes a moment to savor the last traces of Wally's taste – chocolate, sweet cherry soda and the sharp tang of youth – and then he grins, slow and wicked.

"I think that can be arranged."

#

He has the best of both worlds now. In his darkest dreams, in his blackest moments, he gets to use the shade of Wally in a thousand different sick and twisted, blood-soaked fantasies. But he gets to have this too – the embodiment of purity and innocence, sunshine and unfettered joy, with a soul-deep eagerness to please, all wrapped up in a sensuous sheath of golden, freckle-dusted skin and lithe muscle.

#

Everything tarnishes over time beneath dirty fingers and dirtier minds, but he's good at compartmentalizing; he's had years of experience keeping the two halves of his world completely separate. He'll do everything he can to keep Wally untainted, uncorrupted, unsoiled by dark imaginings.

And when he can't – and he knows that day will come, and sadly all too soon – he'll have a thousand new delights with which to tempt and try his most beloved Ganymede.